LUBBOCK, Texas — In his first season coaching at Illinois, Bruce Weber grew weary of comparisons to his predecessor, Bill Self.

Now, in his first season at Kansas State, Weber isn’t running away from Frank Martin. In fact, Weber often brings up the subject of the coach he replaced.

He did so Monday during the Big 12 coaches teleconference when speaking about the Wildcats’ defense, which ranks No. 1 in the conference in scoring defense, allowing 57.8 points a game.

“I’ve given praise to Frank Martin because he created here a culture of toughness and defense and we’ve kind of carried it over, but he started it,” Weber said. “We’ve tweaked some things — we play more of a team defense where they were pretty much all out there with a lot of total deny and one-on-one defense. We try to do a little more team defense and different things on ball screens, but it definitely helped to have the foundation set for us to continue it.

“The kids have taken pride and if you get it going and start to win a few games and they get some compliments about it, it’s much easier to sell.”

Defense has carried the Wildcats to a 17-4 record, a 6-2 mark for second place in the Big 12 and a No. 13 national ranking as they take on Texas Tech (9-10, 2-6 Big 12) at 7 p.m. Tuesday at United Spirit Arena.

“Defense has been pretty good all year,” Weber said. “It’s the thing that saved us early because we really struggled offensively early in the year.”

K-State won a defensive battle Saturday at Oklahoma, 52-50, and is 3-1 in Big 12 road games.

“Everybody plays at a higher level at home on offense and you have to have a good mindset defensively,” Weber said. “You have to take care of the basketball, also, and we’ve done a pretty good job taking care of the basketball to get a shot opportunity most every time.”

The Wildcats lead the Big 12 in turnover margin at plus-2.86 a game, an area that has not been a strong point for Texas Tech, which is tied with Texas with a conference-worst 15.7 turnovers a game.

The Red Raiders committed 22 turnovers in a 77-61 home loss to West Virginia on Saturday, leading to 27 points off turnovers by the Mountaineers.

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